The Hoax

In this approximation of a true story, Richard Gere plays Clifford Irving, the failed writer who conjured up the scam of … if not of the century, at least of the 1970s. Irving claimed to have interviewed Howard Hughes, co-written the recluse’s autobiography, and then walked off with a mint—until the aviator called him on it, that is, and Irving was sent to prison. Orson Welles covered the same story with his 1974 film F for Fake, a bizarre, wonderful, and virtually unwatched film. But with The Hoax, director Lasse Hallström takes a more conventional and humorous approach. Gere, whose comic sensibilities have never been given their due (he was the best thing in Chicago), looks as though he’s having a ball; the rest of the film is as light on its feet as such scam-artist classics as Mamoulian’s Love Me Tonight and Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can.